I had a bmw try to undertake me recently only to realise that I was driving slowly because of the (unnecessary) queue of traffic in front of me, so he tried to swerve into my stopping distance instead. Unfortunately for him there was a copper a car or two ahead that noticed his shenanigans.

I don't understand people who cant seem to look for traffic in front of me, my bike doesnt obstruct the view that much.

If I'm doing 200MPH on 70MPH road in the outside lane, if a person in the middle lane pulls out infront of me, what causes the accident? If I'd I'd been doing 70MPH I might have been able to break enough to avoid hitting them. Equally if the person in front had been paying attention and not pulled out, it would not have been a problem.

Speed, IMHO, does not cause accidents, it dictates to a large degree the size and overall outcome of the accident.

By speeding, do we meen traveling too fast for the road conditions. Or do we mean simply breaking the speed limit.

Not all 60MPH roads are equal. I can think of dozens where traveling over 30mph in a 60 is not breaking the limit, but I would say its too fast for the road conditions and therefore speeding.
Equally, we have some really wide, straight roads with large pavements that are 30 because they are just outside a built up area. Doing 40, IMHO, is perfectly safe for the road users and pedestrians (there just aren't any). But this would be speeding as in breaking the limit.

What REALLLY pi$$es me off, is anyone who refuses to break 55-65 in a 60 where its perfectly safe to do so, but then continue to happily speed at 38+ in a very built up 30. As soon as we hit another 60, they crawl around at 50-55 again to repeat.

driving too slowly can cause accidents as well, frequently there are drivers pootling along at 40 on dual carriageways when all the other trafiic is going at 60-70 mph, so the slow driver is actually driving without care and attention!

Speeding is not an option these days, even a momentary lapse can get you "flashed" .
There a lot of speed cameras out there.
As a company car driver, I am aware that if I lose my license, I lose my car and my job.
Speed may not cause accidents, but it makes them more likely, and more difficult to avoid.
A young friend of mine hit a patch of loose gravel on a bend at 50 the other day, wrote his car off.
If he had been doing 40, he might have had time to recover control.

And could you, glancing in your rear view mirror, judge correctly the speed of an approaching nutter doing 200mph?- I doubt it, the braking distance needed to drop 130 mph in speed would mean you would need pretty good eyesight (And yes, I know you were exaggerating, but why should someone breaking the law expect law abiding roadusers to get out of the way?)

Incidentally, speeding (or any other motoring offence) can be seen as invalidating your insurance.

The sig between the asterisks is so cool that only REALLY COOL people can even see it!

nordle wrote:If I'm doing 200MPH on 70MPH road in the outside lane, if a person in the middle lane pulls out infront of me, what causes the accident? If I'd I'd been doing 70MPH I might have been able to break enough to avoid hitting them. Equally if the person in front had been paying attention and not pulled out, it would not have been a problem.

If the person in front looked in their mirror they would see you in the far distance, they have a reasonable expectation that you will be doing something like 70-100 mph (being realistic) therefore they might judge that there is in fact enough distance & time for them to pull out. Even if they do pull out and themselves are doing 100 mph, you're still going to stuff them up the a**e at an impact speed of 100mph.

By speeding I mean driving faster than the prescribed speed limit i.e. 70 Miles and Hour in a built up area. Caught a copper doing 60 through a 50 zone earlier, but the zone is far longer than it needs to be so I matched my speed against his and followed along quite happily.

The answer to your question Nordle is it is their fault for pulling out on you (though as has been pointed out if you are doing 200mph then their mistake is understandable) I personally feel safer in the presence of 'faster drivers' than I do when I discover a pootler in my path. Especially the ones who slow down from their 50 whenever they pass a road sign.

Ho hum, I've plumped for Yes, but on the whole I think it is driving at a speed outside the range of the rest of the traffic on the road that is most likely to cause an accident (where speed is a factor), whether excessively fast or slow.

shifty_ben wrote:The answer to your question Nordle is it is their fault for pulling out on you (though as has been pointed out if you are doing 200mph then their mistake is understandable)

Actually, I think that the law would say that it is your fault if you rear-end someone doing 70 mph, as you cannot possibly do that if you were driving legally.
Any collision which involves a motoring offence automatically places the blame on the offender.

The insurance company would probably have a problem with paying out on an accident in which the primary cause was a nutter doing 200mph.

The sig between the asterisks is so cool that only REALLY COOL people can even see it!

I think that the law would say that it is your fault if you rear-end someone doing 70 mph, as you cannot possibly do that if you were driving legally.

You could if they were doing 40 down a dual carriageway! having said that, my understanding is that the default is for the blame to be attributed to the person who went into the back of the other person. Of course with some evidence and arguing you can change this, but the theory is that if you went into the back of someone you werent keeping a suitable stopping distance so it is your fault.

Anyway I'm off to enjoy a nice ride down some country roads, just replaced a leaky oil seal so hopefully I won't arrive in a cloud of smoke!

I think that the law would say that it is your fault if you rear-end someone doing 70 mph, as you cannot possibly do that if you were driving legally.

You could if they were doing 40 down a dual carriageway!

I actually meant if you go into the back of someone who is doing 70 mph

ah, new I forgot something when I got up today.

Unless the other driver admits they were speeding it would be quite hard to show that you were actually doing 70 though. Well unless you had just got flashed in a 50 zone in which case you are both in the wrong!

Speed kills, but so does heroin. Breaking the speed limit does not so long as your speed is reasonable for the circumstances

It is impossible to go into the back of someone who is doing 70 legally, even on a motorway, because to do so, you would have to be doing more than 70 mph yourself.

It is actually very difficult to avoid blame when you hit someone from behind, mainly because you are either not paying attention,driving too close, too fast or all 3.

I have only once rear-ended someone, and that was because he stopped half way out onto a roundabout, I thought he had gone, looked right, looked back, too late!
I do a lot of mileage (have for the last 20+ years), and have been rear-ended at least 5 times that I can remember, usually at traffic lights or right turn junctions, every time while I was stationary.

I have heard some poor excuses myself :

"It was wet and he had ABS. If I my car had ABS I would not have hit him" stands out .

The sig between the asterisks is so cool that only REALLY COOL people can even see it!